Wednesday, November 28, 2012

One of the things the right wing does is keep organizing. While we rest and recover from an election, they are off on their next campaign. They do this by having hundreds of advocates. So, while some recover, others launch their next campaign.

The Foundation for Excellence in Education’s annual conference starting this morning in Washington, D.C.

The agenda hits most of the main policies former Gov. Jeb Bush has supported: How to make teachers more effective; school district accountability; charter school accountability; the parent trigger and funding; and what to expect from new Common Core assessments.

The conference also features a number of keynote speakers, including Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

If ever evidence was needed about the bizarre mind meld between the Obama administration and the far-right of the Republican party, here it is.

Secretary Arne Duncan is giving the keynote to Jeb Bush’s Excellence in Education summit in Washington, D.C. on November 28. Another keynote will be delivered to the same gathering of the leaders of the privatization movement by John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, who headed the Obama transition team in 2008. This is sickening.

Jeb Bush’s organization supports vouchers, charters, online virtual charters, and for-profit organizations that run schools. It also supports evaluating teachers by student test scores and eliminating collective bargaining. Jeb Bush believes in grading schools, grading teachers, grading students, closing schools, and letting everyone “escape” from public schools to privately-run establishments. The free market is his ideal of excellence, not public responsibility, not the public school as the anchor of the community, but privatization.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The Democracy and Education Institute has again submitted a
proposal for support of efforts to update the California History Social Science
Framework so that California students would study Chicano/Latino history as a
part of their k-12 education.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

How Teachers Unions Lead the Way to Better Schools . Diane Ravitch upends the "bad teachers" narrative.

By Amy Dean

I have a concern: Teachers are getting pummeled. Too often,
they are being demonized in the media and blamed by
politicians for being the cause of bad schools. Right-wing
governors, power-hungry mayors and corporate "reformers" -
all ignoring root issues such as poverty and inequality -
have scapegoated the people who have devoted their lives to
educating our children. Moreover, these forces are seeking
to destroy the collective organizations formed by educators:
teachers unions.

The stakes for our country could not be more profound. The
labor movement and the public education system are two
critical institutions of American democracy. And they are
two that go hand in hand. Teachers unions have played a
critical role in advocating for public education, but you'd
never know it from mainstream media coverage. Therefore,
there is a great need to lift up this tradition and
highlight the efforts of teachers to collectively push for
top-notch public schools.

To figure out how we can push forward on this issue, I
talked with Diane Ravitch, one of the country's leading
education historians and public school advocates. A
professor at New York University, Ravitch is a former
Assistant Secretary of Education and the author of several
books, including 2010's The Death and Life of the Great
American School System: How Testing and Choice Are
Undermining Education.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

In this
case the News and Review covers what the Sacramento Bee ignores.

Speaking of that wholeWaiting for ‘Superman’ cult: What was Sacramento’s
first couple doing this election season while hundreds of millions of dollars
were on the line for Sacramento schools? Roving the country, trying to screw up
other people’s school systems, of course.

Michelle Rhee, patron saint of the teacher-bashing movement, has been using
her Sacramento-based StudentsFirst organization—a 501(c)(4) “social
welfare” organization, of course—to funnel money into ballot measures in
several states.

In Michigan, StudentsFirst
funded anti-union groups trying to defeat a ballot measure that would put the
right to organize unions for private and public employees into the state’s
constitution. It’s a right that is recognized in the United Nations’ Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, but apparently not one that Rhee thinks Michigan
teachers (or any other workers) should have.

“I love teachers. Effective
teachers,” she told members of the Michigan state Legislature while lobbying
against the measure. By “effective” Rhee means teachers with high test scores:
exactly the kind of evaluation system she instituted as chancellor of the
Washington, D.C., schools before her boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was
unelected and Rhee had to follow. The same kind of system that Raymond was
warning about in his critique of Race to the Top.

StudentsFirst also poured money
during this election into a Georgia ballot measure that, if passed,
would make it possible for charter-school companies to get approval from state
officials, even if local school boards turn them down. Rhee’s group is one of
the biggest contributors—at $250,000—along with Alice Walton, heiress of
the Walmart fortune.

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

We defeated the billionaires efforts to crush organized labor and to continue
the anti tax radicalism.

We defeated the anti labor proposition 32.

We passed Prop. 30, to fund schools, universities and social
services. The schools will be funded this year and next. This is a floor under
austerity. It raises taxes
on the rich to pay for services.
It does raise income tax by ¼ of
percent – but 90% of the tax increases are on the rich . A tax of 1-3 %
on those who make over $250,000 per year.

My own Congressional district is so close that it can not be
called yet.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

The Nov. 1 Field Poll says that if the election were held today 48 % would
vote Yes on Prop. 30 to fund schools, colleges and public services, 38 % would
vote no, and 14 % are undecided. That is too close. We need your effort this weekend to get the 14 % to become a
Yes vote. This vote is our best
opportunity to reverse the austerity cycle of budgeting used in California for
the last 4 years since the economic crisis.

Please act on this email. There is a list of 30 actions you
can take this weekend.

From the
Governor,

The
California Dream was built on a system of public schools and colleges that gave
every Californian access to the education needed to get ahead.

Today,
I’m asking you to join me in supporting Proposition 30 because we can’t keep
cutting our schools and still keep the economy strong for the next
generation.

With
your YES vote on Prop. 30, we can:

▪Stop another $6 billion in cuts to
our schools this year.

▪Prevent steep tuition hikes for
college students and their families.

▪Invest in our schools and colleges so
we can prepare the next generation for the jobs of the future.

Let’s
work together to invest in our children and a strong economy for California’s
future.

Join me in voting YES on Prop. 30.

Here is what we need you to do:

Pick at least 4.

▪Write a Letter to the Editor

▪Call 30 people in the state to vote
for Prop 30

▪Before school, place Prop 30 signs at
the corners of the school ground- public property

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